Sunday, April 1, 2012

The Value of Black Life

after all the recent cases if police brutality and civilian murders, i wanted to compile a list of some significant and important cases just to show that, as many have said, this IS terrorism. here are a few cases that i think are important in showcasing not only the disregard for the Black life, but also how justice/punishment is virtually non-existent.

Trayvon Martin (17)- shot and killed by a member of a largely white neighborhood's watch committee. Trayvon was unarmed. George Zimmerman has yet to be arrested.

Kenneth Chamberlain (68)-tasered, then shot to death by police responding to a medical alert. it is unclear why the police responded with deadly force to a medical emergency. even after Chamberlain informed the officers he was alright, they broke the door off the hinges, tasered him, then shot him to death in his home. Chamberlain was unarmed. the name of the officer has not been released. no one has been charged.

Kendrec McDade (19)-shot by police officers responding to a supposed theft who believed he was armed. McDade was unarmed. officers involved were placed on leave.

Tommy Brown (35) & Wife (35) -shot in front of his children while playing basketball with them. after his children ran to tell their mother, she emerged from the house and was shot and killed as well. both were unarmed. John Oliver Hill Jr. has been placed under arrest.

Howard Morgan -shot 28 times by 4 white cops. Morgan was an undercover 13 year veteran of the Chicago police department. after being stopped for driving down a one-way with his lights off, Morgan was placed on the ground (after having his weapon removed and after he informed them that he was an undercover policeman) and shot 28 times.-21 times in his back and 7 to his chest. he survived (i'm mentioning it because they wanted to kill him) and was then charged with the attempted murder of one of the policemen. Morgan was unarmed when shot. he was found guilty of attempted murder (even though he was shot 21 times in his back by 4 policemen!!) and is currently incarcerated.

Rekia Boyd (22)-shot in the head and killed by officers attempting (recklessly) to shoot a supposedly armed man who claims he was unarmed. Rekia was unarmed.

Rahmarley Graham (18)-shot by police while supposedly attempting to flush drugs down the toilet. Graham was unarmed. no officer has been charged.

Jateik Reed (19)-beaten to death by police officers while handcuffed after being arrested supposedly for drug charges and assault. Jateik was, again, unarmed and handcuffed while beaten. no officers have been charged.

Tarika Wilson (26)- shot to death during a raid of her home for the purpose of arresting her companion, who was believed to be a drug dealer. Wilson was the mother of 6 children, and was shot while holding her 1-month old son. he was shot in the shoulder and had to have one of his fingers amputated. Wilson was unarmed. the officers were placed on administrative leave.

Aiyana Jones (7)-shot to death in her neck during a police raid while attempting to arrest a homicide suspect who shares a home with Aiyana's father. Aiyana and her father were unarmed. there have been no arrests or suspensions.

Oscar Grant (23)-shot to death by an Oakland police officer for supposedly resisting arrest...while he was handcuffed and on the ground. the videotape, recorded by numerous BART passengers, show Grant on the ground, handcuffed behind his back, being accosted by this police officer, then shot. he was pronounced dead the next morning. the police officer was charged and found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. he served a total of 8 months and 8 days in prison.

Amadou Diallo (24)-a Guinean immigrant, who apparently looked similar to a serial-rapists the cops were searching for, Diallo was shot 41 times by 4 police officers who mistook Diallo's wallet for a gun. a simple rectangular wallet. Diallo was unarmed. officers were charged, and later acquitted by a jury.

Dannaer Fields (49), Bobby Clark (54), William Allen (31)-shot to death this week after giving directions to the shooter. the shooter, a white male, targeted the Black neighborhoods of Tulsa, Oklahoma killing 3 Black men and wounding 2. the 2 men responsible have been arrested, but the media has hesitated to say this is a racially-motivated serial killing.

Sean Bell (23)-shot along with 2 of his friends after an undercover officer at a club believed one of the members of Bell's group possessed a gun and may have intended to use it at the club. 5 officers proceeded to empty 50 shots in Bell's vehicle. wounding his 2 friends and killing him. no shots were fired at the officers. all 3 men were unarmed. the officers involved were acquitted, but were later fired or forced to resign.

James Anderson (49)-ran over and beaten to death by a gang of teenaged white Mississippians who went out patrolling the streets of their town for the sole purpose of finding and killing a Black person. after being beaten, Anderson was attempting to gain his balance when the teens hit him head-on with their pick-up truck. two of the teens involved were charged, but the others in the vehicle were not (i was not able to find any info on whether they were found guilty or not).

there have been numerous cases of Black people, particularly, Black men being murdered under false pretenses of perceived threats or blatant disregard. and as often as this is occurring (#14 was THIS WEEK), with the prevalence and the violent nature of these attacks, we have to see this as nothing but terrorism. if all these instances i listed were white women and Trayvon Martin was a 17 year old white girl, and they were murdered by Black police officers and citizens, the National Guard would have been called to ever major city years ago, and every Black male would be in jail (well, the latter is already true). the only reason this has not been deemed terrorism by the government is because they would have to do something about it, and with the "justice" you can see that has happened to these murderers listed above, it should be clear that Black life is not of any value.

let this be a wake-up call to every Black person and all people of color. our lives are not valued here. to all of you who feel some sense of pride in calling yourself something hyphenated with "American" at the end, WAKE UP. you are not an American. you're a tax payer who lives on American soil. a little over a century ago, you weren't a full human. a few decades ago, lynching, convict labor, sharecropping, and Eugenics were all genocidal methods in one form or another supported or encouraged by the US government. we do not get the benefits of justice, Due Process, or even respect. we are not Americans and we never have been. the sooner this is realized, the better our situation will be and the quicker we can progress as a community.

these are not isolated incidents. these are the results of a system founded on racism and poverty. and personally, i am to the point where i see no point in marching, in protests, in rallies, in letters and phone calls to congressmen and senators, in t-shirt campaigns and the like. these things are doing nothing. how many times are we going to march and say "never again"? we've been saying "never again" since Diallo. we've been signing petitions and getting the best lawyers and suing police departments since Bell. and NOTHING has changed. they are still shooting us when and where they please and getting paid vacations as punishments.

it has been said that insanity is doing something the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. is this not the textbook case of insanity?? we march every time somebody Black is shot and expect things to change??

we need to meet violence with violence. for every Black person that has had 41 shots emptied into him UNARMED, there needs to be an officer dead. under just circumstances (and by "just", i mean that justice is served and at least attempted by those we pay to protect us) , i would most certainly advocate against violence, but these are not just circumstances; this is not a country that values our lives. this is a country in which numerous Black people have expressed their fear of walking the streets. even a routine traffic stop is reason enough to fear for one's life even if they have no illegal weapons, drugs, or prior convictions. we as Black women are frightened that our kids walking to the store will not return and that the men in our lives will be shot to death while reaching for their wallets. we also fear for our own lives, as it can be seen that Black women have not been excluded.

again, THIS IS TERRORISM. recognize it for what it is.

think. criticize. comment. be cautious. buy a gun. learn how to use it.

I've read some of your posts. I like the fact that you speak your mind about what you feel/ think. However, it's my belief that violence should not be fought with violence, isn't that the hole point of having a better life?! You see what's wrong from you're point of view, how there is to this day, discrimination based on the color of your skin, religion, gender and so on. But look beyond that, see that if we can't look beyond our history, nothing will ever change, because we won't be able to preach something different and those who will come after us, will be just as us. You see a difference because you feel different. We all have souls, hope so... However, I agree with the fact that is too much violence towards people who have black skin, and I think that the system should change. It's the system that's so wrong, they use people to create guns, bombs, drugs that can & will be used towards us. Isn't that fucked up?! Look how many crimes people commit everyday in America. You can get a gun easier than a drivers license, and that's not ok!! People have more power than they know and if there is a way for us to look at the whole picture, and see what they mean by "we are all brothers and sisters", one day this will be history. Try to look at it from my point of view, thank you.

@ Anonymous -if you do not think that violence should be met with violence, do you have another option? if you are a person of color and you have looked into the histories of various people of color and understand that various methods that have been attempted to stop violence done against us, which have you seen that worked? which ones have not? if you think sit-ins and singing "we shall overcome" will stop the violence against us, why are we still being killed? Black people have been there, done that. protests? petitions? working through the court system? marches? boycotts? been there, been there, been there, and done that. if you're a white person, honestly i don't think you have any say in this discussion. if you're a person of color, you have to understand that violence meeting violence is a last option, but we have gone through all the other options, have we not? from my perspective, Black folks have been quite understanding and maybe even docile for most of American history. and the minute someone Black starts saying they're tired of playing nice, then there comes all these appeals to some kum-ba-yah shit. i'm not here for that. "look beyond that"?? look beyond Black babies shot to death with no recourse?? what?? "you see a difference because you feel different". what the fuck are you saying? please, come back when you've really looked into Black history and have let go of the "lets-hold-hands-and-hug" rhetoric that has no place when dealing with violence. the "system" isn't some entity that exists outside people. it was created, organized, and currently MAINTAINED by HUMAN BEINGS. there aren't robots making and using guns, bombs, and drugs. these are people. we may indeed all be brothers and sisters, but if my "brother" has a gun to my head and has shot me in the stomach, i'm not going to waste energy telling him "we're all brothers and sisters". and the fact that you advocate such let's me know you're someone who has no idea what it means to be Black in America and frankly you don't seem to be someone even trying to understand.